The poor - Granite Grok

The poor

From Meet the Press with David Gregory was this exchange concerning a slight from a hard Left Democrat and a hard Right Democrat over the poor.  It was clear that the Democrat has a “sniffling” attitude that perpetuates the meme that Conservatives (and Republicans) hate the poor in a backhand slap against the just ended CPAC meeting.  I guess she’s never read “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism” by then liberal Professor Arthur Brooks from Syracuse University.  A couple of comments from me afterwards (as well as in between).

Ralph Reed: People don’t care what you know until they know that you care (Jack Kemp) and the Republican Party has gotta do with Francis is doing with the Catholic Church. Francis is putting the poor, and care for the poor, and amelioration of the poverty where it belongs which is at the center of the Gospel. If people who are lower middle class are struggling, who are poor, and are wanting to climb that ladder of opportunity but are having a hard time grabbing that first rung? If they don’t think that Conservatives and republicans have a vision for the future that includes them? Their message will be badly damaged.

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA): I do think that if we look at Republican policies, if we look at the budgets over the last couple of years, there really isn’t anything there that says that we’re going to reach out to the middle class. I mean, in fact…

And this is where it starts… Here the Representative shows a knee-jerk reaction and philosophy.  The latter is that ONLY Government can help anyone and that it should be the first and last resort.  With that ideological cement-mind set, if one holds that outlook, then the quantification can only be done by measuring budgets and money spent. It is always the upfront emphasis – how much is being thrown over the wall?  Hardly ever is the measurement ever done downstream – not the money spent or the laws / regulations spewed to change behavior, but what was the actual result?

So she already condemns the Right simply because she has a single point of reference – a governmental solution only. And being only able to see a single solution, we see the snark.

Ralph Reed: that’s not true

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA): You didn’t even extend unemployment insurance. If you look at the diversity at CPAC, there 163 speakers, 35 were women…

Oh yeah, the Left’s version of affirmative action: devolvement to a quota system in all situations.  If not all of the Democrat / socialist identity victimhood / oppression groups isn’t strictly represented according to population percentages (or any other measure that makes the Left look like “they care” at any political moment) in each and every group gathering of any type, well, then you are a RACIST!  Or a War on Womyn or sumptin…

Well, I have to hand it to Gregory – he finally says something reflecting “fair and balanced”:

David Gregory (host): But they don’t want Government to be leading the way. This really is about the size and reach of Government. That is what the debate is about.

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA): It is, it is, but you have to look at the room they had in which they were talking about diversity and in that room, it was virtually empty. There were hundreds of seats.

Yeah, sure thing she tells him…and continues to place her ideology on top of folks that could give a crap about her Political Correctness mantra.  I really do feel sorry for her, stuck in a mindset that makes skin color and gender above the ability of that person.  TRUE diversity is not in how you look, or the gender you are, but in thought and philosophy.  Yet, it seems that the Democrat philosophy basically strips away actual philosophy and thought and replaces it with only that seen in a mirror.

Nice to see Ralph bring out the hammer on the main point:

Ralph Reed: Can I just point out one thing?

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA): Sure

Ralph Reed: In fact, the most successful anti-poverty program since the Great Society is the $1,000 child tax credit. That was part of the Contract with America. We advocated for it when I was with the Christian Coalition. In 2011, the last year in which we have data available? There were 9 million people lifted out of poverty; it is a fully refundable tax credit, by the way

And therein lays one of the gaps between the two philosophies – leave it to the individual (which the child tax credit is) or send the money to Government, pay for lots of bureaucrats to fondle it, regulate it, handle it, and strings attach it before giving it, you know, to the people who actually need it.  Almost 100% yield vs about a 30% yield (those bureaucrats are EXPENSIVE!).  But while Conservatives are generally happy with the Individual result, Democrats don’t trust that and seem to need that security blanket that lots of people like them are upstream to the person actually needed the aid.

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA): And you know, it will be interesting to see whether it that gets …

Ralph Reed:That was our policy, Bill Clinton vetoed it 3 times…

Rep Karen Reed (D-CA) (Sorry, couldn’t figure it out)

…and then drops that hammer:

Ralph Reed: but it was vetoed 3 times and when Mike Lee just announced his tax reform package, I guess just yesterday or the day before, what did he propose? Taking that child tax credit to $2500, making it fully refundable, so what you do, David, is get rid of the bureaucracy, get rid of all this panoply of government programs which are inefficient and you give the fund directly to the poor.

It will never be an acceptable alternative to the status quo for Democrats – for it devolves the Power of the Bureaucracy back to the People.  No opportunity to pad the payroll, add pages to the Federal Register, no way to scam the system, and no nooks and crannies in which to hide the “scratch my back” or Crony Capitalism along with no way to reward or “specialize” one of their Special Interest Groups.  No “dip of the beak” in that change.

Therefore, they will dub this as a failure as far as Helping the Poor.  Their version of the Proper Role of Government as a solution MUST help the Poor but never at the expense of cutting out Government enlargement.

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